Ivan Helda
Ivan Helda ( Belarusian Іван Гелда ; * 1887 , † 1946 in Białystok ) was a Belarusian major in the Dallwitz airborne battalion .
Life
Helda fought during the Polish-Soviet War from 1919 to 1920 in the army of General Stanislau Bulak-Balachowitsch against the Red Army . From 1921 to 1939 he lived in the Białystok region in Poland , where he took part in Belarusian nationalist activities and was repeatedly arrested for this by the Polish authorities. When the eastern half of Poland was occupied by the Red Army in September 1939, Helda fled to the German sector of occupied Poland. As a result of the German invasion of the Soviet Union in July 1941, he returned to Białystok, where he worked as a political advisor to the local Belarusian committee. In 1943, Helda began to organize units of the White Ruthenian Self-Protection Corps in the region to fight the Soviet and Polish underground movements. In May 1944 he was arrested by the Gestapo for his nationalist activities and released from custody at the end of June 1944 of the same year. Helda received the rank of major and was assigned to the Dallwitz airborne battalion , in which he served until the end of the war. Shortly after the war, Helda was arrested by the NKVD and convicted of treason in Białystok. After a brief trial, he was found guilty and hanged there.
Individual evidence
- ^ Antonio J. Muñoz, Oleg V. Romanko: Hitler's White Russians: Collaboration, Extermination and Anti-partisan Warfare in Byelorussia, 1941-1944 , Europa Books 2003, p. 451
| personal data | |
|---|---|
| SURNAME | Helda, Ivan |
| ALTERNATIVE NAMES | Гелда, Іван (Belarusian) |
| BRIEF DESCRIPTION | Belarusian major |
| DATE OF BIRTH | 1887 |
| DATE OF DEATH | 1946 |
| Place of death | Białystok |